The Republican leadership was struggling on Wednesday to stop a scandal over a Florida congressman’s sexually charged e-mail exchanges with teenage congressional assistants spiralling into an election debacle, amid growing pressure for the house speaker to stand down.
With five weeks to go until the midterm elections, Republican strategists believe they must repudiate a party leadership that failed to act forcefully against the congressman — or risk losing control of the House of Representatives.
Polls on Wednesday showed the scandal taking a heavy toll on Republican electoral prospects, with one survey putting the Democrats within striking distance of taking control of the House.
Mark Foley, a six-term congressman who led a personal crusade against online sexual predators, resigned last week after being confronted with suggestive e-mails written to a former teenage male assistant, or page. Foley is now under FBI investigation.
His lawyer insists that he never had sexual contact with a minor. In the days since his exit from Congress, Foley has admitted to alcoholism, acknowledged being gay and revealed that he was a victim of abuse by Catholic clergy as a teenager.
The drip-feed of revelations — and the daily leak of new sexually explicit e-mail exchanges between Foley and male teenagers — has intensified the pressure on Republicans to demonstrate a more emphatic response to the scandal.
The first in the line of fire is the house speaker, Dennis Hastert, whose office knew about Foley’s behaviour for nearly a year but did not seek an investigation until after the damaging e-mail had become public.
Hastert’s political career was hanging in the balance on Wednesday, with the speaker admitting: ”If I thought it could help the party, I would consider it.”
In the last 48 hours Hastert has been attacked by Republicans worried about keeping their seats. Democrats have already begun to use the Foley scandal in TV ads. ”We have to do something different, more dramatic,” congressman Ray LaHood told reporters. ”This is a political mess and what we have done so far is not working. Somebody has to take responsibility for this. It is on our watch.”
The momentum for Hastert’s departure gathered pace on Tuesday, when his deputy, the House majority leader, John Boehner, told a radio station in Ohio that he believed the speaker had had primary responsibility to deal with Foley when he first learned of his activities. ”I believe I talked to the speaker and he told me it had been taken care of,” Boehner said. ”And my position is [that] it’s in his corner, it’s his responsibility.”
News reports yesterday suggested Hastert would hang on until the end of the year to avoid a leadership battle, but he would not seek re-election to his post.
His might not be the only high-profile Republican departure, with anger building against campaign chief Thomas Reynolds. He also knew about Foley’s e-mails and has said he will not return $100 000 raised for the party by Foley. Reynolds was aware of the e-mail exchanges when he received the funds.
The urgency of finding an exit from the scandal was underlined on Wednesday for the Republicans by a Wall Street Journal poll in which 41% of respondents said they felt less positively towards the Republicans than they had only weeks ago.
Meanwhile, another poll put the Democrats well within reach of taking control of the House of Representatives. The party needs to gain 15 seats to reclaim the House, which has had a Republican majority since 1994. Democratic candidates now lead Republicans in 11 of 15 closely contested seats, the Reuter-Zogby poll said. Republican incumbents were especially at risk, trailing Democrats in seven of nine competitive seats.
Part of the polling was conducted after the revelations about Foley emerged, and pollster John Zogby said the growing scandal could put the Republicans into freefall. Republicans readily admit their concern that the lurid details about Foley’s contacts with the pages would alienate Christian conservatives .
On Tuesday night ABC, which first broke the story of Foley’s behaviour, reported that the congressman was having internet sex with a teenage male in 2003 as the House was preparing to vote on extra funds for the Iraq war.
”I better go vote … did you know you would have this effect on me,” Foley writes in the transcript of the instant message exchange. The teenager replies: ”Ya go vote … I don’t want to keep you from doing your job.” Foley then asks for a kiss goodnight. – Guardian Unlimited Â